Microsoft brings out Azure toolkit for iOS An iOS version of the Windows Azure toolkit is now available for developers, according to the official Microsoft blog. The download simplifies coding for Microsoft's cloud-based OS platform. Included with the iOS toolkit are compiled code libraries, a sample app, documentation, and an Azure deployment package….

cocos2d-javascript Cocos2d-javascript is a 2D game/graphics engine based on cocos2d-iphone but designed to run in the web browser. It uses the latest features available in HTML 5 allowing real-time rendering of 2D graphics without the need for plug-ins such as Adobe Flash.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race: the Optimistic Numbers Post But what really happens is one app makes a certain number of sales per day, but two apps make more, and three apps make even more. The sales don't double each time you release an app, since sales of each older app decline over time. But the water level of

Why Your App Name is Dumb — The Brooks Review – Have you noticed how absolutely stupid some iOS app names are? I really mean this — just calling your app “InstaX” doesn’t mean it is as good or as cool as the original. 1 When I am browsing the App Store you have two chances to catch my attention: With your icon. With your app name.

4 Golden Rules of iPhone Game Design | Ezone.com App News – At the core of your game you need a simple, fun game mechanic. And I stress simple. In this A.D.D. world if you don’t grab players in the first 10 seconds, you’ve probably lost them. Unlike a console game they haven’t invested $50 (in all likelihood it’s $0.99 or nothing), so they have not made a big commitment to your game. If they don’t get it in the first 10 seconds, then they are going to hit the home button and launch something else.

Onramps | eliolhan – Luckily* I have techniques to get back on track when I feel blocked or unmotivated. Without adding any new code, I’ll clean things up:

Legendary game maker Graeme Devine on iPad game development pitfalls – Even seasoned, large iOS developers have dropped into the unfortunate habit of simply scaling up the graphics in their games but leaving interface and other game elements untouched – and from Devine’s perspective, this is a huge mistake. — this is a mistake we made with Removr.

How to Make Anything Signify Anything – Detail from a photograph of World War I cryptographers trained by William and Elizebeth Friedman, Aurora, Illinois, early 1918. By facing either forward or sideways, the soldiers formed a coded phrase utilizing Francis Bacon’s biliteral cipher.

Jeybee – Taking the Advantage with App Store Screenshots – Forget your app description for now, because 90% (80? 70?) of viewers will be doing the same. Apple knows this, and it is evident in the iTunes store. They only show a single line of your description, keeping the screenshots in view on any resolution. You see a similar thing in the iPad store. I suspect the only reason the iPhone store is any different is that the current setup is familiar to millions of people.

As you probably know, Mac apps that you bought previously can’t be updated through the Mac app store. This is causing a lot of hard feelings between loyal customers and developers. Here’s a proposal for how app store upgrades can be implemented, with Apple’s cooperation.

Apple needs to allow an unlimited number of promo codes for the Mac app store. This is the only change Apple needs to make.

Developers who wish to provide updates can set up a page or script where a customer enters their current serial number.

With a current serial number, the developer can issue a promo code. If they wish, they can charge an upgrade fee for the promo code.

The customer then uses the promo code to download the app from the Mac app store.

Voila! Everyone is happy. The customer gets a free or discounted upgrade from the Mac app store, and the developer gets another sale or download, which increases their ranking and allows the customer to rate their app.

Validating App Store Receipts – You can add receipt validation code to your application to prevent unauthorized copies of your application from running. Refer to the license agreement and the review guidelines for specific information about what your application may and may not do to implement copy protection.

Receipt validation requires an understanding of cryptography and a variety of secure coding techniques. It's important that you employ a solution that is unique to your application.

You should perform receipt validation immediately after your application is launched, before displaying any user interface or spawning any child processes. Ideally, this check should happen in main, before NSApplicationMain is called. For additional security, you may repeat this check periodically while your application is running.

Since Classics is now free, I decided to check it out in the app store. I searched for “Classics”, expecting it to be the first thing that would show up. Instead, the application named “Classics” is 6 rows down.

Since iTunes Connect has been down for the holidays, I wasn’t able to check my app store sales until today. I got a very pleasant surprise when I checked the reports. Both the free & premium versions of I Can Has Cheezburger had their best sales day since their release. Even iDjembe had a huge sales spike. Unfortunately PicSlide (which is my favorite application & which I consider my best) didn’t see any such increase.

I’m joining Jonah Grant in a protest this weekend by raising the price of ICanHasCheezburger Pro & iDjembe to $10 and removing ICHC lite from sale until Monday.

You’re surfing through the App Store and come across an awesome app, and then you see the price tag, $.99. What do you think? Way too expensive? Should it be free? or are you willing to pay the price for a great piece of software?

This is the biggest problem in the App Store. People these days are so used to seeing a cool app and then downloading it for free and then they get used to it, not paying developer for their work. They don’t understand that these cool little things take time and money to make, yet they still don’t pay for these utterly cool products that people devote time and money to.

When I checked my app store stats for the first day, I noticed that the only PicSlide sales were from my blog & promo codes I gave out. On further investigation, I discovered that it suffered the same fate Craig Hockenberry described here: the release date was set to Sept. 24, which is the day I submitted it, rather than yesterday, when it was approved. As a result, it wasn’t listed as a new application.

I went into iTunes Connect and changed the availability date to tomorrow, which will probably cause it to disappear until then, and hopefully be listed as a new application. If you want it now, leave me a comment to get a promo code.